One that hasn't been mentioned that I'd VERY highly recommend is Jazzpunk. It's moronic and really short, but damn if I didn't laugh my ass off throughout. Two more would be Tomb Raider and especially Rise of the Tomb Raider. I prefer them to the Uncharted games - the combat is much more interesting. It's kind of a midpoint between Uncharted and Farcry. They're a lot of fun. The writing and characters are nowhere close to Uncharted, though.

I have been trying to abandon things if I start them and really don't enjoy them, so Hellblade went back in the queue (ugh). I know it's SUPPOSED to be miserable, but my reason was that I hated the repetitive and uninteresting combat. It's just hit the same damn enemies over and over and hit the dodge button every time you get an audio queue. And every time you trigger enemies, you just get a ton of spawns of the same stupid enemies over and over and use the exact same strats on them. ARGH!!111

Horizon Zero Dawn wasn't recommended strongly enough - it's GREAT. It and Nier Automata and Witcher 3 would all be on very short lists of my favorite games of all time, glad you've done Nier at least. I just bought the original since I loved it so much. Witcher 3 takes too long (I was playing it nonstop for WEEKS). The Last of Us is also a good rec if somehow you haven't played it. It has been hyped up too much since it first came out, so you might be slightly let down, but it's damn good and REALLY twists your emotions in knots as it goes on, and has possibly the best ending in videogame history. Fantastic writing.

One that wasn't mentioned
The Uncharted games are fun, though they have a lot of dull sections (particularly that goddam part in 3 where you climb the building for an eternity) and the combat is kind of repetive, plus it's hard to get into as 1 is not very good and you need to play it to set the stage with the characters. The characters were the primary reason I got really into them. I like the spinoff that came off last year, too, since I really liked Chloe. I was pissed by how they didn't really have her in the last game and was overjoyed to see that the developers apparently felt the same way as me.

I have a lot of these games and haven't touched them yet - I went hogwild on that Black Friday sale. Bloodbourne, The Last Guardian, AC: Black Sails, Farcry 4/Primal, and Rime are sitting on my harddrive on my to-play list. Lots of good recs here. Alien Isolation sounds really frustrating, so it's interesting to see it rec'd. RE7 is on my list, I'm waiting for the GOTY edition to go on sale for really cheap. Yakuza 0 and Persona 5 are also on my "must-buy" list, but waiting for them to be cheap. Same with Shadow of the Colossus, which I've been wanting to play since it originally came out, but I never had a PS2 or a PS3!!

Wolfenstein sounds awesome, but I loathe stealth. Like, REALLY loathe it. It stresses me out too much and I suck at it and I heard the game was full of it.

I'd like to un-second the FFXV rec - that game is a mess and many other recs here are much better. Bioshock 2 is good, btw. It's kind of like a big expansion to 1, but I liked almost exactly as much even though it does feel like the story was a little less thought-out. And 3 is good, too.

Skyrim is something everyone should have played before, but I think at this point you shouldn't play it over The Witcher, which does practically the same thing in a much bigger world with vastly better quests and writing and production values, etcetcetc. Unless you want a more casual experience, of course.

Wolfenstein is awesome. you only have to stealth if you want to on lower difficulties- but on anything above normal it really helps as you get shredded by enemies pretty quickly.
Witcher 3 is a must-play. Best story in the series by far, though you don't need to play the others to enjoy the story. The game really nails the open world aspect and has some of the best side quests next to Oblivion.
All of the bioshock games are excellent imo. Bioshock 1 is getting dated as far as graphics but storywise it's the most compelling besides Infinite.
Last of Us is a must play too. the story is awesome, though I think the gameplay is ok.
Bloodborne is a really fun game if you're into action games. Same with Dark souls 1 and 3 (skip 2, it sucks comparatively).
Nioh is awesome but it's pretty damn hard.
Doom is really fun.
The god of war games are also pretty fun if you just want a good solid action game with gore/puzzles.
Don't bother with Fallout or Skyrim on consoles, they truly shine on PC where you can install all kinds of crazy mods to completely change the experience of the game.

Witcher 3 is a must-play. Best story in the series by far, though you don't need to play the others to enjoy the story.

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I never played 1, and I played 2 once through on xbox when it was new there and didn't remember ANYTHING other than there was a hot redhead sorceress and a guy with a diaper on his head (Triss and Roche). I had trouble keeping characters straight for a while in 3 as I recalled nothing, but it was fine. I was REALLY into them after a while. It's kind of between Dragon Age Inquisition and Skyrim and blows both of them away (and I played through both of them twice so I liked both quite a bit). The writing is just leagues apart, and the characters are the most memorable supporting cast I've encountered since Mass Effect 2/3. I got REALLY into the main plot and the father/daughter relationship with Ciri by the end and that ending (I got the "good good" one with the winter) made me...get hit in the nose with a basketball. Yeah, that's where those tears were from.

I never played 1, and I played 2 once through on xbox when it was new there and didn't remember ANYTHING other than there was a hot redhead sorceress and a guy with a diaper on his head (Triss and Roche). I had trouble keeping characters straight for a while in 3 as I recalled nothing, but it was fine. I was REALLY into them after a while. It's kind of between Dragon Age Inquisition and Skyrim and blows both of them away (and I played through both of them twice so I liked both quite a bit). The writing is just leagues apart, and the characters are the most memorable supporting cast I've encountered since Mass Effect 2/3. I got REALLY into the main plot and the father/daughter relationship with Ciri by the end and that ending (I got the "good good" one with the winter) made me...get hit in the nose with a basketball. Yeah, that's where those tears were from.

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I played all 3 witcher games on PC and while I loved the combat in 1 and 2, I still think 3 is the best balance of excellent writing with slightly more accessible combat. I love it more than I loved the mass effect trilogy, which was one of my favorite series until the third game (mostly because 3 was so dumbed down and the endings are all terrible). It's probably my most played game besides oblivion, skyrim or Dark Souls. Plus it has one of the best soundtracks since Red Dead Redemption or Dark Souls imo.

I thought ME 3 was less dumbed down than 2, tbh. They added back more of the skill points and leveling options, anyway, and the gameplay itself was identical. I don't mind the endings, which puts me in a tiny minority. And that DLC that has the "party" in it was a clever coda to the series despite chronologically not being the end of the game. But yeah, I loved the game even with no DLC. There are sections of it that really do feel like the climax of the series. I get why people don't like it. Whatev.

Witcher 3 had quite a good soundtrack, if a bit repetitive. I like the violin/vaguely ethnic wailing thing. My favorite parts were when it got creepy, like during the stuff with the three witches in the swamp. But Nier Automata, that's the real stuff!!!

It's weird how videogame soundtracks are where all the good composing and memorable themes went now that big budget movies completely abandoned them. I'm playing some junky game now, Gravity Rush 2, and even it has a great soundtrack with tons of great musicianship on it and memorable themes everywhere.

It's weird how videogame soundtracks are where all the good composing and memorable themes went now that big budget movies completely abandoned them. I'm playing some junky game now, Gravity Rush 2, and even it has a great soundtrack with tons of great musicianship on it and memorable themes everywhere.

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Gravity Rush ain't junky ....... But anyway, yes, both of these games have soundtrack that any Jazz enthusiast would love, outside of just being damn good soundtracks.

Gravity Rush ain't junky ....... But anyway, yes, both of these games have soundtrack that any Jazz enthusiast would love, outside of just being damn good soundtracks.

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Haha, I can tell you some of the jazzers in my life would not be impressed by it. It's really fun "pop jazz" though, and some of the other music (particularly the stuff carried over from the first game) is wonderful Euro-flavored stuff that comes off almost like something you'd hear from Alexandre Desplat. The level music in that game is SO GOOD. The "scary" music falls on its face, but it doesn't really matter.

It's kind of a junky game just in terms of janky physics (i've gotten stuck on invisible walls many times), poor controls (good luck smoothly accomplishing ANYTHING with reliability), and terrible level design (hey, let's take our core mechanics, the ones that everyone plays the game for, and throw them out the window for a bunch of horrendous stealth missions, terrible sections where you have to search for a small object over a huge area, and ground levels!!!). But, I'm playing through and doing all the sidequests, so it's not too bad. It just is frustrating me more than the first one mainly cause of its fascination with varying the gameplay without having improved it. I LOVE the characters and the general aesthetics and the core gameplay concepts. Even if they feel like a beta version. They're so cartoony that I have to laugh whenever I fall a great distance and bounce off the ground. It's almost as good as Octodad.

Another game that I can't recommend enough is Bastion. Transistor is also fantastic, though it's more of a turn based rpg rather than action rpg like Bastion. Both have absolutely gorgeous graphics and music, with kickass gameplay to boot.

Transistor's combat is GREAT. I usually like the button mashing, and I LOATHE strategy games as I'm really bad at them, but Transistor's is really cool. It usually gets compared to XCOM (which I only played for about 30 minutes before swearing off), but it reminded me more of Parasite Eve in how player movement and cooldowns work. The music and look are fantastic. Every single thing the sword says is stupid and the story sucks, but oh well.

I played Bastion several years ago and don't remember it at all besides the narrator. I think I liked it, but obviously it made no impression.

Speaking of Parasite Eve, they need to do a re-release of that thing already. It's getting ridiculous. It has plenty of fans and it was a really slick-looking game for the time but we're just stuck with 55 ports of Resident Evil 4 and 20 of FF7. Argh. I think it had pre-rendered backdrops, which is probably the holdup, but they could still do a half-assed port like they have of games like FFIX with low-res backgrounds with smoother 3D assets.

Speaking of Parasite Eve, they need to do a re-release of that thing already. It's getting ridiculous. It has plenty of fans and it was a really slick-looking game for the time but we're just stuck with 55 ports of Resident Evil 4 and 20 of FF7. Argh. I think it had pre-rendered backdrops, which is probably the holdup, but they could still do a half-assed port like they have of games like FFIX with low-res backgrounds with smoother 3D assets.

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I wouldn't hold my breath.

Square Enix have a thing with their old property where they either let it die by the wayside or do a re-release in the worst way possible. At least the Parasite Eve trilogy was given a "conclusion" with The 3rd Birthday, but unfortunately that was PSP exclusive so barely anybody played it. Though I believe PE1 is available on PSN.

I guess it's partly due to the core staff of certain games no longer work for the company, hence why we'll never see a new Chrono or Xenogears game by Square Enix. Instead they're reduced to just PSN re-releases. The former (Chrono Trigger) finally got a Steam/PC release but it's just the clunky iOS port, which pissed the fans off to no end.

Hell, even Secret Of Mana's new remake is copping some backlash, but for the opposite reasons. And that franchise has been toddling along on the spot with mediocre to terrible entries since Legend Of Mana. And even their flagship series Final Fantasy isn't safe, where their best entry (FF6 by far) can't get remade without being utterly terrible.

I know Square Enix is capable of a great remake. Romancing Saga Minstrel Song and Adventure Of Mana (and even it's first remake Sword Of Mana) are fantastic crowning examples. But so far the bad is now largely outweighing the good.

EDIT: Back to OP.

Also adding Spec Ops The Line to the list to check out, as it's more familiar ground being military shooter based.

Square Enix have a thing with their old property where they either let it die by the wayside or do a re-release in the worst way possible. At least the Parasite Eve trilogy was given a "conclusion" with The 3rd Birthday, but unfortunately that was PSP exclusive so barely anybody played it. Though I believe PE1 is available on PSN.

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The worst thing I've noticed about the PS4 is that it's so anti-backwards compatibility that you can't even get stuff that's on the PS3 online store!! Thus, things like that are unavailable to me. I'm getting tempted to get a PS3, though that would be giving into their BS. Considering PS1 emulators have been great for probably 10 years now and are really lightweight, there's no reason they couldn't make all the PS1 games available to PS4 owners, at the very least. They're just trying to push their trash streaming service that I will never use. Streaming latency + games designed to be played locally, with a rental design on top? I don't think so!

You guys should replay BioShock 2. Sure, it’s not as epic in scope as 1 and infinite, but the story is pretty dark and heart wrenching.

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I usually replay one of the three every year or two. Just bought the repacked suite for xboxOne, although I haven't played it much due my PC skills not transferring well to console controllers for shooters. The kids are adept at these things, however, and specifically asked for it.